Petition (H)On 6 September 2004, Adalah submitted a petition, motion for injunction, and request for an urgent hearing to the Supreme Court of Israel on behalf of the Union of Parents of Arab Students in Israel and in its own name demanding that the General Security Service (GSS) be prohibited from intervening in the appointment of teachers, principals and inspectors to the Arab Education Division of the Ministry of Education (MOE). The petition was submitted by Adalah Attorney Marwan Dalal against the MOE, GSS and Prime Minister’s Office. The Supreme Court, on the same day, ordered the Attorney General’s Office to respond within 30 days.
The GSS works within the Prime Minister’s Office. GSS intervention in the Arab education system is primarily carried out through the post of the deputy director of the Arab Education Division in the MOE. Through this post, the GSS has the power to bar any Arab candidate - Palestinian citizen of Israel - from being hired without its approval. The deputy director, who is not a pedagogical expert, serves on the appointments committee, which considers bids for the hiring of principals and inspectors for Arab schools, and his opinion is decisive on all important matters in the Arab education system, including in the appointment of or refusal to hire a candidate to a position. The deputy director’s opinion, however, is not recorded in the protocols of the appointments committee’s sessions. When an applicant is rejected due to the GSS representative’s objections, the ministry never informs the candidate that he was denied a position for security reasons.
In the petition, Adalah relied upon numerous sources to confirm the GSS’s intervention in the appointments of Arab educators. Adalah provided letters from three former education ministers - Shulamit Aloni, Yossi Sarid and Amnon Rubenstein – and an affidavit from a former senior employee in the MOE - Dr. Daphna Golan - who all confirmed the practice of GSS intervention in the appointment of Arab educators. They also confirmed that the post of deputy director is filled by a GSS representative, who has the decisive word in the appointment of Arab educators. Former Minister Aloni added in her letter that she unsuccessfully attempted to remove the GSS representative from the ministry. Dr. Golan, in her affidavit, confirmed that the deputy director serves on the appointments committee for the Arab education system, and that without his approval – which is based on the GSS’s opinion – no teacher, principal, or inspector can be appointed to an Arab school.
Adalah provided additional support for the existence of GSS intervention in the appointment of Arab educators by submitting a protocol from a proceeding in the Regional Labor Court. Under cross-examination, an employee in charge of human resources in the Northern District of the MOE for 12 years confirmed that the deputy director always participates in the appointments committee and that if there is any “security-related” information, he is the one to bring it. Adalah also relied on several newspaper reports published in Ha’aretz, a recent Channel 10 television program on this issue, and books and academic articles documenting the GSS’s involvement in the Arab education system.
The petition emphasized that security agencies have maintained structural control over the Arab education system since the days of military rule, which was applied only to the Palestinians in Israel from 1948 to 1966. The petition included some letters written by Arab schoolteachers dating back to the 1950s, criticizing the hiring and firing practices of the MOE, and revealing some of the phenomena of the system of control.
The petitioners raised numerous legal arguments challenging the legality of GSS intervention in the Arab education system. Adalah argued that there is no authority in law for GSS intervention in the appointments of Arab educators, and that such practice thus constitutes a serious breach of the rule of law. Adalah also contended that such intervention is discriminatory and violates the principle of equality, as the GSS involves itself only with regard to Arab candidates seeking positions within the MOE. There is no equivalent GSS position for the appointment of teachers, principals, and inspectors for Jewish schools. This interference is also humiliating to Arab educators, and thus impairs their right to dignity. Further, GSS’s practices contravene several articles of the Equal Employment Opportunities Law - 1998, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of national belonging. Further, Adalah argued that the institutionalization of GSS intervention in the appointment of candidates to educational and managerial posts violates the candidates’ right to freedom of employment.
Moreover, by selectively targeting Arab educators, the GSS infringes the Arab students’ right to education. Arab students are forced to study in an atmosphere of suspicion, as teachers are fearful of the ever-observant eye of the GSS and of losing their jobs, and they are not at liberty to fulfill their duties as educators within a free and healthy education system. This in turn re-produces a culture of silence. Finally, Adalah argued that the MOE’s failure to disclose to applicants the reason for a job rejection infringes their right to due process.
H.C. 8193/04, Union of Parents of Arab Students in Israel, et. al. v. The Ministry of Education, et. al.